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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29369985">A Soldier's Promise</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shipsandficsandotpsohmy/pseuds/Shipsandficsandotpsohmy'>Shipsandficsandotpsohmy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers Feels, M/M, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:34:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,730</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29369985</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shipsandficsandotpsohmy/pseuds/Shipsandficsandotpsohmy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Engagement rings are symbols of a couple’s dedication, love, and loyalty to each other, and entail one of the most important promises a couple can make to each other. This very definition is why Steve loves his so much. It’s a symbol of his and Bucky’s love in a time when their love had been prosecuted. His ring has been with him through trouble and tribulations, revelations and rescue missions; he thought he would have it with him for the rest of his life together with Bucky. But then Bucky dies and he crashes into the ocean and wakes up 70 years in the future. Upon waking up, he doesn’t know if his last connection to his world and his home has survived with him, or if it’s just another thing that has been cruelly ripped out of his grasp.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Soldier's Promise</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I honestly don't really know what this is; I just had an idea about Steve and him still considering himself engaged to Bucky in the 21st century even though he thought Bucky was dead and then this fic happened. Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and feel free to leave a comment about what you think!</p><p>This is unbetad so all mistakes are my own.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>        When Steve comes out of the ice, he is deemed medically safe and sound. His brain scans come back clear, his heart is still pumping as it’s supposed to (no more arrhythmia, thank god), and he miraculously kept all his fingers and toes despite being frozen for seventy years. 

</p><p>        So, after a few more days of medical tests and experiments, Steve is allowed to go back home. Home, what a stupid fucking concept. Steve doesn’t understand how they can possibly think it’s okay to say that word to his face. Do they not understand that although he was lucky enough to keep all his physical extremities, he feels the gaping hole where his heart used to be like a knife cutting into his chest 24/7? That he doesn’t have a home? That his home died seventy years earlier, when Steve wasn’t able to catch him? Do they not understand that he will never have a home again? His SHIELD assigned apartment is certainly not home and it never will be. It’s a place for him to keep his clothes and stuff and try to drown his depression in alcohol even though he knows he can’t get drunk. It’s a place for him to sleep, although he rarely does; nightmares about trains and ice being his night long companions. </p><p>        SHIELD tries to get him adjusted to the modern times, not that they try very hard. After all, they only see the serum coursing through his veins, not the man that holds the serum that is hardly a man anymore. Although sometimes it annoys him to no end that they only see the Captain America facade, most of the time he can understand because he’s lost sight of the person that he used to be as well. Most of the time he doesn’t even feel alive, let alone a person; he’s a ghost, haunting the new buildings where all he sees are the old. All he can ever see is the old; every day he is bombarded by a well meaning person raving about the future, when all he sees is another thing that he’s lost, another tether to his time that is gone and is never coming back.</p><p>        Unfortunately, or thankfully, it depends on how you look at it, he doesn’t have much time to catalogue the differences between his world and the 40s or properly grieve for all his lost loved ones before he needs to go save the world again.</p><p>        The Chitauri invade and he jumps right into the fray with the rest of his “team”. SHIELD calls these people his team, even though he has never seen these people before in his life. He does have to admit that although he doesn’t have the energy to get to know Stark, Romanoff, Banner, and all the rest at the moment, that it is nice to be back in charge on the battlefield and part of a pseudo team again. He finally feels like he has a purpose again, not that throwing himself back into fighting is any healthier than what he was doing before. Well, at least SHIELD is happy and his service hopefully makes up for the fact that the first chance he got, he ditched his SHIELD assigned apartment in Manhattan and moved into an apartment in Brooklyn. Manhattan felt so foreign and he figures that if he has to live in the 21st century, he might as well live where he feels most comfortable and close to his home that he left back in the 40s.</p><p>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p>       As insensitive and weird as it may sound, the Chitauri invasion is a turning point for the better for Steve. Although he still carries the immeasurable grief of losing Bucky, he feels himself starting to function again and is motivated by the new purpose of continuing to be Captain America. And although part of him feels that by getting better, he is moving on from and leaving Bucky behind, most of Steve is glad that since the Chitauri invasion he’s been making progress. Even though he will never forget Bucky and has even built a sort of memorial in his living room to ensure he never does, he’s stopped going to the Smithsonian in Manhattan every day to view Bucky’s exhibit which more often than not leads him to having a breakdown when he gets back to his apartment. See? Progress! At least, he THINKS that’s progress. He’s also stopped avoiding doing new and enjoyable things, like going to Coney Island and actually having the money to do things, just because he can’t do them with Bucky, and instead has resolved to do those things because Bucky would have loved them and Steve wants to experience them for him. He even starts to thaw towards the rest of the Avengers; just enough to ensure that the group feels like a team, because although every single one of them has secrets they are not willing to share and parts of themselves that will likely always remain hidden, it’s important that they like each other enough to trust that the others will have their back on the battlefield. Steve hopes that one day he will come to trust them enough to let them fully see HIM and not the Captain America facade that he has maintained so far. </p><p>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p>        Unfortunately, that day comes sooner than Steve would have wanted. The first time that any of the other Avengers see past his walls is only a couple of months after the Chitauri invasion. It is during a post mission debrief that Tony brings in a box with god knows what in it; Steve has no idea how the box is in any way related to the mission they were just on and assumes that it’s just another of Tony’s antics. However, a feeling of uneasiness starts to creep up on him when Tony unceremoniously drops the box on the table in front of Steve.</p><p>       “Stark, what is this?” Steve looks from Tony to the box with a look of skepticism and exasperation.</p><p>        “Relax Capsicle, I haven’t done anything to the box, it’s perfectly safe. I was actually digging through SHIELD’s archives a couple of days ago, as one does” “No one does that Tony” “As one does, and I found this box with your name on it. So, being the nice, extremely generous colleague that I am, I retrieved it for you.”</p><p>        As Tony keeps talking, Steve’s face loses all its color and his heart plummets. With trembling hands, he reaches for the box and rips off the lid. What he sees inside makes his legs give out and he falls back into his chair with a small thump. The rest of the Avengers look to him in concern; they've never seen their strong leader so shaken up.</p><p>        “Uh, Cap? You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” remarks Tony, looking around at the rest of the team to see if any of them know what’s going on.<br/>
“Y-yeah, I’m fine. But I have to go now. Just, um, just continue the debrief without me. Natasha, you know what to do.” Steve shoves the Starkpad he was using for debrief notes into Natasha’s hands, and practically sprints out of the room carefully cradling his precious cargo in his arms. The rest of the Avengers can only watch on in bewilderment. </p><p>       Steve drives home as fast as he legally can, desperate to open the box and finally have it safe and sound on his finger.  He knows he scared the rest of the team by running out so suddenly, but he couldn’t handle being in there with them and the box. He couldn’t handle them seeing his carefully curated walls come crashing down around him; as soon as he opened the box and saw what’s inside, he felt another part of his heart breaking apart.</p><p>        By the time he gets up to his apartment and has all but barricaded himself inside, his heart feels like it's going to beat out of his chest and his breathing is so erratic, he briefly wonders if he is going to send himself into an asthma attack. </p><p>        He gingerly deposits the box on the table and with trembling hands, carefully opens it. And there lying right on top of some old notebooks and a blanket, is it. He delicately lifts up the chain that holds it and Bucky’s dog tags and holds them up to the light, admiring the way that the afternoon sunlight glints off the slightly tarnished metal of his engagement ring. </p><p>        He remembers the night Bucky proposed like it was yesterday. It was the night before Bucky had to ship out to England, and Bucky had insisted they go to the Stark Expo. Steve had reluctantly agreed, even though he’d rather just spend the whole night in bed, but off they’d gone, each with a girl on their arm. (After he’d woken up from the ice, Steve had actually looked up what had happened to them, because he remembers them as being Bucky and his’ favorite ‘cover couple’. As it turns out, they had gotten married in their late nineties and had lived a nice few years being able to legally celebrate their seventy plus year long romance.) The Stark Expo had been tremendous fun, and Bucky’s blinding grin in response to Howard’s ‘flying’ car had been enough to cure Steve’s initial reluctance. Of course, Steve had to go and ruin it by sneaking away and trying again to enlist. After catching him, Bucky had been the angriest Steve had ever seen him.</p><p>        Once they’d gotten back home, they’d gotten into one of the biggest fights of their relationship. The moment the door slammed shut, Bucky whirled around and started yelling at Steve about trying to enlist again. “Why, Stevie, why? Why would you want to go over there?”</p><p>       “Bucky, I can’t leave you, okay? If you’re going, I have to go too! I can’t just sit here not doing anything, when you’re going to be over there, in danger of dying every damn second!”</p><p>       “Sweetheart, I know you’re scared. I am too, okay? But you gotta promise me that you’ll stay here because over there? It’s not the same as getting into back alley fights, Stevie, it’s war.”</p><p>       “I can take care of myself Buck! I’m not weak, I can handle it!” </p><p>       “I know you could handle it, Stevie, but I don’t know if I could. If anything were to happen to you over there, that would kill me, okay? I can’t lose you!”</p><p>       “I just-I just can’t lose you either Buck!” Steve sobbed, with tears streaming down his face.</p><p>       “Aw, doll, come here.” Bucky tugged Steve into a tight embrace, shushing his sobs. “Sweetheart, I can’t lose you either, okay? You are the single most important thing to me, and I don’t know what I would do if I lost you. I love you, okay Stevie? We’ll be okay. As long as we love each other we’ll be okay.” Bucky petted Steve’s soft blond hair, murmuring sweet nothings while Steve tried to calm down.</p><p>       Eventually, Steve lifted his head and met Bucky’s icy gray eyes with his own watery, red rimmed, blue ones. “M’sorry I ruined tonight. It was supposed to be a happy night, but now it’s not and it’s all my fault.” Steve's eyes started to tear up again but Bucky quickly shushed him. “Hey now Stevie, it’s alright. We had fun at the Stark Expo, and the nights not over yet, is it?” Bucky winked at Steve and Steve gave a slightly shaky laugh in return. “Oh it’s not over yet, huh? Well, what else did you have in mind Mr. Barnes?” Steve cheekily grinned up at Bucky and Bucky tipped his head back with laughter. “Oh sweetheart, you have no idea.” </p><p>       Bucky suddenly picked Steve up, Steve will deny that he let out a squeak till the day he dies, and carried him over to their small, lumpy couch. Even though it was kind of an uncomfortable position, with Steve half sat on Bucky’s lap and Bucky’s neck at an awkward angle, Steve wouldn’t have changed it for the world. He got lost in the sensation of kissing Bucky, kissing the love of his life, the kisses getting more desperate and heated by the second, until suddenly Bucky pulled away and carefully lifted Steve up and deposited him next to Bucky. Bucky stood up and strode over to the old writing desk they had in the corner and rooted around in one of the drawers, while Steve watched on in confusion.</p><p>       “Uh, Buck? What are you doing?”</p><p>       “Hang on Stevie, I’ve just gotta find it.” Bucky continued sifting through the drawer with a concentrated look on his face, until, “Aha! I’ve got it!”</p><p>       “Got what? Got what, Bucky?” Steve looked on in complete confusion as Bucky walked back to the sofa and dropped to one knee directly in front of Steve.</p><p>       “Steve, Stevie, babydoll, you are the love of my life; I have loved you since we were fourteen and I will love you until the end of the line, whenever that may be. You are my sunshine, my heart, my life. I told myself not to get too sappy while asking, but Stevie, you deserve it. You deserve everything and anything, and even though I won’t be able to give you all of that, and even though we won’t ever be able to legally get married, will you marry me?”</p><p>       By the time Bucky was done with his speech, his eyes were wet and Steve’s hands covered his mouth in shock and tears streamed down his face. When Steve finally calmed down enough to answer, he threw himself at Bucky, enveloped him in a bone crushing hug, and smashed their lips together in a kiss that was too much teeth clashing together and wet from their combined tears, but was nevertheless perfect. When they finally parted, both slightly breathless, Bucky gazed at Steve with a suddenly serious look on his face and asked, “So that’s a yes, right?” Steve stared at him incredulously before bursting out in laughter. “Yes, you jerk!”</p><p>      Although it’s a bittersweet memory, that night was the best of Steve’s life and his engagement ring became a sort of security blanket for him. When he’d woken from the ice, this had been the first thing he’d asked about; he hadn’t cared about the new technology that had been invented, he hadn’t cared about his health, he hadn’t even cared about hearing how he was still alive, as soon as he had remembered that Bucky was gone, he desperately needed to know where his engagement ring went. And when they refused to tell him where it went- “I’m sorry Captain Rogers, we have no idea what you’re talking about”- it felt like he’d lost Bucky all over again.</p><p>       His engagement ring has always been a physical manifestation of their love and during the war, whenever Steve felt like giving up, or felt like he wasn’t good enough, he would always look at it and be comforted by the knowledge that Bucky, the only person who really mattered, believed in him and loved him unconditionally. Even when the world was preaching about how sinful homosexual relationships were, and how their love wasn’t real, he would just look at his ring and know that he and Bucky could make it through anything and everything, if only they had each other and their love. And when Steve flew the Valkyrie into the ocean, he was comforted by the fact that he would die with Bucky’s love on his finger. </p><p>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p>       When Steve resurfaces from his trip down memory lane, he realizes that he’s been quietly sobbing and his shirt is damp with tears. He wipes his eyes with a sniffle and says in a wobbly voice, wishing that Bucky could hear him, “I hope you knew that I never needed anything else but you Buck. You were and always will be enough for me and I’ll always love you, you jerk. After all, I’m with you till the end of the line.” With an air of reverence, he finally slips the ring back on his finger and it feels just a little bit like coming home. He feels that much closer to Bucky and for that he is grateful.</p>
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